Those Who Have Thrice Defied Him- A Marauder's Tale
by Gyotso
Summary: James and Lily are about to start their seventh year when it is is announced they are the new Head Boy/Girl combination. Following an overwhelming amount of work to prepare for the term, the two decide to meet only to happen across the greatest dark wizard in history. Now it's up to James's bravery and Lily's wit to defy He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.


**Takes place in the summer before the Marauder's final year at Hogwarts. James and Sirius have just received their owls concerning the coming term, and, to James's great surprise, there's a message for him. (Note: I took _some_ liberty with describing the Head Boys/Girls duties and powers). I should also mention that while this will bear some similarity to "The Stag and The Doe", but it is not meant to be a sequel.  
**

* * *

 _Mr. James Potter,_

 _By decision of the headmaster, In honor of your remarkable bravery in the affairs of Mr. Snape and the Whomping Willow, and your undeniable level of aptitude in class, you have been selected as this year's Head Boy. Congratulations are in order, and you have made us, the faculty of Hogwarts, very proud of how much you've grown as our student._

 _As Head Boy, you will have responsibilities to assist younger students and watch over the Prefects to ensure that the use of their power is fair and well-deserved. You will also exercise the absolute authority of Prefects, should the occasion to use them apply. Unlike Prefects, however, you will be allowed the power to remove points in moderation of (5) at a time, per student, for whatever house is at fault. If more points demand to be taken away, Head Boys/Girls should consult with a teacher or the Headmaster._

 _You will also be required to work closely with the Head Girl. This year it has been decided that Lily Evans_ _shall serve as this year's Head Girl. Miss Evans and yourself should coordinate by owl before meeting on the Hogwarts Express on the date of September 1st to supervise the Prefects walking the train._

 _Again, you have made us proud, and hope that you will continue to be a shining example of a leader to all who enter Hogwarts doors._

 _Sincerely,  
 **A**_ _lbus Dumbledore  
Headmaster_

"Since when do they send you a letter when you've been made Quidditch captain for the third year in a row?" Sirius snorted.

But James had no answer, just held the piece of parchment in his hand as if he'd been handed a time bomb set to go off in two seconds.

Sirius looked it over and read it twice to be sure that it was properly addressed. Then he pulled out his wand and tried to bewitch it into revealing if it was a prank or not.

"What the hell is Dumbledore thinking?" Sirius asked.

James didn't have an answer, as offensive as his comment was.

Lily clutched the letter. Being Head Girl was a fantasy of her's for so long that she forgot when she actually started to want to be one. Maybe when she received her Prefect badge, or all those nights on patrol with Remus. But nothing prepared her for the identity of the Head Boy.

 _James Potter_.

"An ignorant toe-rag," Lily had once called him.

True, he had saved the life of someone he hated. But how did that balance out with everything else he'd done?

And now she'd be seeing a lot more of him over the next year. _Great._

The two Hogwarts students began to correspond with each other immediately, although neither would admit how much anxiety the coming year was giving them.

Finally Lily became so tired of writing a letter every twelve hours, she sent him the address to a park near where she lived and told him to meet her there at 12:00 the Saturday before they went back to Hogwarts.

As 11:58 became 11:59, she began to fear that he wouldn't come, although his return letter promised he'd be there.

"Irresponsible, ignorant..." she was muttering to herself when there was a familiar pop and suddenly James Potter was sitting on the park bench next to her.

She had her wand on him faster than he would have been able to fight back if he were actually in danger, then again, maybe he was in some level of danger knowing that look in her eye.

"Sorry," he said honestly, shouldering his bag. "I didn't mean to startle you. I popped up a couple hundred feet away."

"How you passed your Apparition test on your first try is beyond me..." Lily grumbled.

"I got lucky," he confessed, never having mastered the three D's as quickly as he had pretty much every other subject in school.

Lily stowed her wand away, thankful there were no muggles around to see what had transpired, although it would have been a strange sight to even the most dismissive muggle.

"So, you wanted to talk─" James began.

"Only about the Prefect schedule," Lily snapped, sensing a pick up line or something of the sort. "I want to get this over with and go home."

"Um, okay? That's what I was gonna say," James told her.

"What?" She asked.

"Lily, are you okay?" He asked, his voice full of concern.

She caught herself before answering snidely, realizing that he'd called him by her first name for the first time in what could be years. Why?

James happened to turn his head and saw the mark in the sky.

"Lily, go home." His command took her by surprise, but she was even more shocked to see him running toward a nearby neighborhood.

"Where the hell do you think you're─?" She saw the Dark Mark in the sky and realized that James was telling her to run and hide, to be safe. 'Like hell,' she thought to herself, running after him.

For the first time in her life, she watched him transform. His body laid down as he ran, his arms and legs becoming covered in fur as his clothes and defining features seeped into his animal form.

He began running, or prancing, even faster, making it impossible for Lily to keep up. But she, logically, had a way of getting ahead of him.

She pulled out her wand and turned on the spot.

She met James as he transformed back to human, right in the Cul De Sac of Spinner's End.

"You're an Ani─" He covered her mouth with his hand and shushed her, looking over her shoulder at the broken house.

A pale, bald man in dark robes stalked through the house, the front door ajar.

"It's him," James whispered. " _Voldemort._ "

Being barely seventeen, Lily thought ridiculous was his statement. Until she realized whose house they were at.

"Dispose of their bodies," his cold voice ordered.

"Very well, my lord."

"They should have known better than to defy me," Voldemort said to someone, although to who, James wasn't sure.

"Yes, my lord."

James looked at Lily, who merely nodded, both recognizing the voice easily as one of their classmates.

"You should be thankful, Severus. I don't make trips to slaughter filth every day."

"Yes, thank you my lord."

"His parents," Lily remembered quietly that Snape was a half blood. His father had been a muggle, and his mother a pure blood. In Lord Voldemort's eyes, it was the equivalent of being rubbish.

"Now, you will be free to operate for me without their vermin listening in. I will have your regular reports on the doings of Albus Dumbledore inside the school."

"My lord, I feel I would be better suited for work _outside─"_ Snape said fearfully, worried about trying to spy on one of the greatest wizards of all time.

A large snap, the sound of the crack of a whip, assured the spies outside that Snape had just been Cruciated by his master.

"We need help," James muttered, looking at a mirror he'd pulled out of his bag. "It's him."

"What the─?" Lily began.

"Come on, we've got to get out of here." James took her hand and started to drag her away. Normal circumstances would land him a black eye and a hex that would turn his intestines into goo, but desperate times mean desperate measures, and she was thankful to have someone by her side.

"And where would you lovebirds be going?" A Death Eater asked, wand pointing to them.

James silently cursed himself for having been snuck up on, putting Lily in danger as a result. He swore to himself to get her out of here.

"We were just looking for a quiet place to sneak a snog," Lily lied quickly, glad she'd pocketed her wand before coming up to the house. "I was told this house was empty."

James noticed the momentary distraction in the Death Eater's face and realized that his hand was closer to Lily's than his own, as he'd foolishly dropped it when he heard a voice behind him.

"You're no muggles," the Death Eater said coldly, glancing at the wand on the ground.

James whipped Lily's wand out of her back pocket and sent the Death Eater flying wordlessly into a parked car, tossing Lily back her wand as he scooped up his own.

"GO!" He shouted stupidly, turning because he knew that the noise would gain the attention of the Dark Lord himself. "Confringo!" He screamed, trying to provide a chance for Lily to escape before the Dark Lord found a Muggleborn nearby. The doorway burst into flames as another masked Death Eater appeared, disarming James with a quick spell.

"Stupefy!" Lily cried, crumpling the Death Eater to the ground.

James lunged for his wand as the fire died, revealing the Dark Lord himself.

Lily flourished her wand, foolishly attempting to disarm the most dangerous dark wizard in history.

Voldemort smacked the spell aside and cast a curse.

James tackled her out of the way and screamed, "REDUCTO!"

The roof on the patio to the house collapsed as Voldemort disappeared and reappeared in front of the steps.

"Crucio!"

"Protego!" Lily exclaimed, seeing that another Death Eater had appeared alongside the Dark Lord as her shield charm went up. "Stupefy!"

The wizard, could have been a witch, impossible to tell at this distance, knocked it to the side and sent a curse.

James stopped the spell quickly with, "Finite Incatatem!" and sent a hex spiraling towards Voldemort.

Voldemort stopped it cold and summoned a ball of fire, which began to circle around the young Hogwarts students.

"Aqua Eructo!"

"AGUAMENTI!"

Their spells combined did nothing to sway the fire.

"We have to run!" Lily screamed to James.

She knew that it was every instinct in him to stay and fight, the way a true Gryffindor would. Hell, it was hers too. But they had to be practical.

James managed to knock away the Fiendfyre once with a powerful spell that seemed to sap away his physical energy, but Lily doubted he could do it again with positive results.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Lily shouted, binding the Death Eater fighting on Voldemort's side before grabbign James Potter's hand and disapparating before he could argue.

James and Lily were later found hiding in a deserted subway station, huddled together. They'd been so afraid that they'd forgotten to be scared during the fight, and now could barely let go of each other until Albus Dumbledore himself came up on his new Head Boy and Girl, both frightened beyond anything they'd experienced in their lives.

"Are you two hurt?" Dumbledore asked softly.

"No sir," said James, standing and helping Lily up.

"Your parents were notified as soon as Mr. Black got a hold of the Ministry, they thought it a trick, but I managed to convince them to send a full team of Aurors to investigate."

"Sev─ Severus..." Lily tried to figure out how to word it.

"He killed Snape's parents," James told Dumbledore when Lily couldn't bring herself to say it. "It was Voldemort. We saw him."

Dumbledore heaved a great sigh, "Then you two are perhaps the most unfortunate and luckiest people alive today."

The two were pestered incessantly by reporters and Ministry officials to the point that Dumbledore declared he would take aggressive action to protect his students from the abuse. They all went away and left Dumbledore to discern the finer details.

Naturally, the whole school knew of the ordeal by the end of the first day. Lily and James refused to speak on it and were often caught walking solemnly, but quietly, from class to class together much to Snape's chagrin.

James told Sirius that he'd seen Snape, but never told another soul aside from Dumbledore about his parents or that Snape was being used as a spy on Dumbledore. A fact Dumbledore plainly seemed to ignore, which infuriated him.

It had nothing to do with their old rivalry when James would duel Snape for putting Lily in harm's way. Voldemort killed Snape's parents so Snape could be a Death Eater. If it hadn't been for that, and a terrible stroke of luck, Lily Evans would never have been there.

Then again, James reasoned with himself, she looked like pure, beautiful fire the way she took charge of the situation without fear. Sure, they were both afraid. But James had acted out of his own stubbornness, his own desire to stop Voldemort. Lily had shielded James from several curses and even got him out of there when he was too pigheaded to run.

He owed her his life, and he vowed to pay her back one day. Even if it killed him.

Lily was so sick of hearing that she'd been saved like a damsel in distress from James Potter that she hexed three Ravenclaw sixth years, gave detention to two of her close friends, and took five points away from every house in a single day.

When Lily was brought into Dumbledore's office, she thought for sure that her Head Girl badge would be stripped from her.

She was surprised to see that James was in there, reading out of a dusty book that appeared to have the title "Dumbledore versus Grindlewald."

"Lily," James said, slamming the book and putting it away like he'd done something wrong. "I didn't know you were coming."

"Why are you here?" Lily asked.

"I asked him here, my dear." Dumbledore said, quietly entering the room.

"Is there a problem, Professor?" James wondered, as he hadn't done anything wrong, that could be proved, recently.

"I'm aware of what happened with our young Ravenclaws," Dumbledore told Lily. "And our young Mr. Snape."

Busted.

"I─ he..." James stuttered, which was most unlike him.

"I'm well aware of the start of the fight," Dumbledore elaborated. "I know Mr. Snape goaded you into a duel. Nevertheless, the two of you need to be show more self discipline as Head Boy and Girl."

"Yes sir," said James.

Lily nodded in agreement.

"Off you go," Dumbledore said kindly, going to sit at his desk.

"Professor?" Lily asked as James made his way for the door.

"Yes, Miss Evans?"

She thought about what she wanted to ask before speaking, "Are they going to find him?"

"Him?" Dumbledore asked innocently.

"Voldemort," Lily said without missing a beat.

"One day, perhaps. When there are people brave enough to stand up and stop him."

"Is that how you beat Grindelwald?" James asked. "Enough people were brave enough to fight back?"

"Not necessarily," Dumbledore said mysteriously. "In fact, you often find that quality overrules quantity. And the right person, with the right tools, can do the job no one else can. But sometimes that person has to deal with their own selfish fear before doing what is good for all."

They wouldn't understand what Dumbledore said until decades in the future, when their son would walk into the Forbidden Forest totally cut off from his friends.

But for now, they said nothing and walked hand-in-hand back to the Gryffindor dormitory, as if they'd done it a thousand times.

And from that moment on, James Potter became Lily's friend. There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and facing off against an evil dark wizard is one of them.

* * *

 **I can't say this ended exactly the way it began, but I was having so much fun I couldn't help but keep building on it. I laced fact with a little AU to give a headcanon a plausible reason for Lily deciding to tolerate, even like, James. I concluded that facing off against Voldemort (for the first of three times) would be reasonable for why she started to like him. I added the whole Snape thing, completely on my own, not to bash him but since it was never explained what happened to his parents. And it just happens that he lives close to Lily.  
**

 **Hope everyone enjoyed the fic!**


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